


we move lightly

by chanterie



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 02:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1841521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chanterie/pseuds/chanterie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>they call them tusâlh. hunters. and they require a pair of warriors to move them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we move lightly

**Author's Note:**

> i can never resist the urge to write a pacrim fusion. also this fic has a lot of references to the greater mythology of middle-earth!! there's a glossary in the end notes.

When the Dagor Dagorath comes, it is not with loud trumpets and a call to arms like she had always imagined. It comes with whispers following a tired proclamation. Eärendil, wounded, leans against his spear. The Silmaril is still bound to his brow, but it’s smudged with blood and sweat and ash.

“The Enemy has escaped the Void and fled. To where, I do not know,” he tells the masses gathered in Valmar.

They hear no more of Morgoth for a few, tense years. Then the great beasts come from the sea.

 

 

 

 

“Fuck me,” Ýril says emphatically, and Tauriel raises an eyebrow. “Not like that. But I would not mind if you helped me patch up this shoulder wound.”

There isn’t much to patch. The wound is small, but it bled quite a bit into Ýril’s leather armor and undershirt. “How goes the battle?”

“Over, finally,” Ýril sighs. “Celebrimbor and Narvi cooked up one incredible explosive, and Eärendil finally shoved it down the thing’s throat. Fucker was bigger than Ancalagon. If Morgoth,” she spit the Enemy’s name like a curse, “Has more of those, it will not be long until we are completely overrun.” 

Tauriel frowns. “Narvi… You don’t mean the dwarf Narvi?”

“The very same.” 

Her frown deepens as she ties off the bandages on Ýril’s shoulder. “But the gates between the living and the dead—we are not able to pass through them.”

“That was before the world began to break,” comes Aulë’s voice from behind her. Tauriel starts. Centuries she has lived in the Vala’s halls and she is still unused to his habit of appearing seemingly out of thin air. “Things are changed now, and they will continue to change. We will need the work of my children before the war is over.”

 

 

 

 

They are called _Tusâlh_. Hunters.

The original design is Aulë’s, tweaked by his children and the few elven smiths that work alongside the dwarves. When they are finished, they will be as tall as mountains and the power needed to move them will take two souls. It leaves Tauriel gaping in awe at the blueprints.

She is no smith and never will be. But she has lived among smiths for hundreds of years now. Even if she had not wanted it, she would have received an education in metalworking. Ýril started her with the basics. Celebrimbor taught her about making weapons and armor. Mahtan taught her about jewels and jewelry. She knows her way around the forges of Aulë like she knew her way around the Greenwood.

It makes her the perfect messenger. While everyone else is busy planning and building, Tauriel can run from one end of the Halls to the other, carrying messages. It’s on one of these trips that she spots _him_ for the first time since she watched him fall.

He’s dressed lightly. The thin blue fabric of his tunic is plastered to his back with sweat. Soot is smeared on his cheeks. But he looks pleased as punch while conferring with his uncle. Tauriel feels as if she has just been punched in the gut.

It takes him a moment to spot her, but when he does, Kíli grins. “Tauriel! What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” she says unthinkingly, then shakes her head. “But that is not—I mean--I have a message for your uncle.” 

She relays her message and makes a hasty retreat. The feeling of Thorin’s even stare is a weight that follows her as she goes.

Dís comes to her later that evening, and finds Tauriel hiding up a tree. She laughs and climbs up beside her. “You know, I was not sure whether to believe you or not when you returned to me Kíli’s runestone. What was it you said? You would sail to the West and reside as close to him as you could, taking comfort in that even if you could never see him again?”

Tauriel flushes and glares down her nose at Dís. Of course, all that does is get a laugh and a knowing look out of the dwarf.

“I am glad,” Dís says quietly, patting Tauriel’s hand, “That the one my son loves returns his feelings so ardently.”

 

 

 

They don't see each other often.

Or rather, they don’t talk often.  They pass each other in the Halls on a regular basis, but they’re both so busy that conversation escapes them. Tauriel knows that, in the dark, quiet moments when they're alone for a brief second before they have to scurry off, there’s a naked longing on her face. She sees it mirrored in him.

All her news of how he is faring comes from his mother and brother. Fíli works with the more delicate bits of the Tusâlh, and has more time to chat than his brother does. At least, his schedule and Tauriel’s match up more than hers and Kíli’s. The blond prince laughs at the pair of them, and dutifully carries hellos back and forth. He talks of how excited Kíli is that work on the first Tusâlh is almost complete. They’re going to ask Aulë if they’ll be able to drive one of the great machines together.

It’s a despondent look on Kíli’s face that tells Tauriel how that conversation went. She hands her messages off to the nearest person and drags Kíli away from his uncle. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought Thorin looked relieved that he wouldn’t have to shake his nephew out of his black mood.

“Tell me,” she says when they are settled just outside the Halls.

Kíli sighs and rests his elbow on his knees. “Mahal says that our fighting styles are too different. For all that we are close and alike in mind, our instincts counter each other too much for it to work.”

If this were a romance novel, Tauriel thinks, this would be the part where she puts her hand on his. They would share a heated, knowing look and perhaps kiss. This is not a romance novel. She stands and gives Kíli a hard look, a fire igniting in her chest. “Spar with me.”

He looks surprised, but follows her to the training grounds. Wooden training blades are easy enough to acquire. The one she favors is one she crafted herself, reminiscent of the twin blades she wielded in Middle-earth. The one she tosses to Kíli is not unlike a dwarvish blade.

A fierce grin spreads across his face as he readies himself. A smirk crawls across her lips in answer.

Poets sometimes compare battles between highly skilled combatants to dances. Kíli and Tauriel do not dance together. Their movements are much too violent for that. But they move together as if they have sparred with one another for Ages. 

It makes a strange sort of sense, Tauriel thinks. For all that the fighting styles of the elves and the dwarves are different, she and Kíli both prefer archery when given a choice. And, well, she’s always been a fan of ending things as quickly as possible which can sometimes lead to a certain viciousness. Perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising that they are well-matched.

As wood strikes wood, her blood sings. She can practically hear the excitement in Kíli’s spirit as well. It has been much, much too long since either of them have been able to do something like this, and they both intend to enjoy it as long as possible. 

It is not until they are completely limp and exhausted that they stop. There’s no clear winner between the two of them, but that doesn’t stop the applause coming from the sidelines.

Aulë smiles at the pair of them. “Tell me, Tauriel. Have you ever given any thought to driving a Tusâlh?”

 

 

 

 

There are always a few stares that follow the elves of Aulë’s Halls around. At the midday meal following the announcement of who will drive the first Tusâlh, Tauriel finds herself subjected to more stares than usual. 

“You know,” Ýril says loudly and pointedly, reaching over Tauriel to steal a bit of food from Narvi’s plate, “No one’s really sure who Durin married the first time ‘round. It could have been an elf.”

Tauriel lets her forehead fall to the table while Narvi howls with laughter at the disgusted faces all around the room.

 

 

 

 

When one of the Maiar living in the sea heralds the next beast’s arrival, it is too soon. The Tusâlh, which Tauriel has named _Dramgoth_ in her own head, is complete. But her drivers have not had much time to get used to the magic that runs her.

“Everything will be fine,” Kíli tells her as they step into the great machine's head. “Mahal has faith in us.” 

The smile she gives him in return is slightly bitter. Most of the other elves that live in the Halls are Noldor, and former exiles at that. Tauriel has heard many conflicting opinions of the Valar over the years, and it is the more degrading ones that spring to mind now, even if she has never heard a bad word said of Aulë.

Yavanna’s voice brushes her thoughts away. “Deep breath,” the Valië says. There may be other words, but Tauriel does not hear them in the rush of magic. 

Memories flash in her mind’s eye. She recognizes all of them, even the ones that are not hers. When Aulë had said that her mind would be connected to Kíli’s, she did not think it would be this all-encompassing. This intimate. She can feel his emotions and the way her wonder infects him. They need no words anymore, thoughts flickering between them faster than light.

Amusement tickles her brain and she smiles, thinking briefly of the butterflies in her stomach that his grin always brings. The surprise, she can clearly tell, is not her own.

Tauriel looks over at Kíli’s shocked face and remembers. She had never answered his question about loving him. There was no time before he died, and she was not sure of her answer. And after... After there was no right moment. Or at least, that is what she told herself.

She thinks in Sindarin— _You have my love_ \--he understands anyway. 

 

 

 

 

They are bruised after the battle. Tired and aching from long hours of being battered against the metal of the Tusâlh. But they are victorious. When they return, it is to great cheers and feasting. Kíli is swept away by his kinsmen, and Tauriel finds she cannot protest. There is some magic lingering between the two of them, and his joy feeds her smile.

When night falls and she finally crawls into bed, she is joined by her partner. Kíli smiles and runs his fingers through her unbraided hair. She strokes his short beard and can’t help but laugh quietly. There will be more battles, she knows. More battles and more work and more time spent apart. None of that can detract from the feeling of completeness that falls on her like a warm blanket when Kíli rests his forehead against hers.

He murmurs words she should probably not know in her ear. _I love you_ , he says in the tongue of his people. And after, the name that she felt in him when their minds were joined as one.

She has nothing like that she can offer him in return. He doesn’t mind. But she kisses him anyway. When they drift off into dreams, they walk through mountains and trees hand in hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Dagor Dagorath -- the final battle/war against Morgoth that would end the world of Arda Marred and result in it being remade perfectly. 
> 
> Eärendil -- Elrond's father. He sails the sky with a bright and shiny jewel called the Silmaril and is basically a star. He also killed the biggest dragon ever, Ancalagon.
> 
> Morgoth -- the original Big Bad. Sauron learned how to do it from this guy.
> 
> Ýril -- original character! She's a Noldorin smith and was bros with Celebrimbor back in the day.
> 
> Mahtan -- Celebrimbor's great-grandfather. He's a smith who learned from Aulë. He also has a great red beard c:
> 
> Dramgoth -- Sindarin for "enemy striker". Seemed like a sufficiently Jaeger-like and dwarf-like name.


End file.
